Can the FSB read the correspondence in the contact. All correspondence is monitored by the special services. The Ministry of Internal Affairs can read the correspondence of Russians on the Internet and listen to telephone conversations

On March 20, the Supreme Court legalized the FSB's demands to decrypt the correspondence of Telegram users. Roskomnadzor sent the messenger a request to issue encryption keys within 15 days, otherwise the agency has the right to block the service in Russia after April 5.

April 3 a group of activists held a series of single pickets against the blocking of Telegram near the FSB reception office on Kuznetskiy Most. They read aloud excerpts from their personal correspondence.

Almost immediately, the participants were taken to a paddy wagon, and forty minutes later they were taken to the Ministry of Internal Affairs in the Meshchansky district for "preventive work." Later, Anatoly Kapustin, one of the detainees and the organizers of a series of single pickets, said that there was no conversation. He also said that all the participants had their passport data recorded, but the reason for the arrest was never given. An hour later, the activists were released without drawing up a protocol.

Afisha Daily talked to the picket participants about why they came out to read their personal correspondence.

Anatoly Kapustin

Microblogger, organizer of the action

“We wanted to show how absurd it is when the state tries to get into the personal correspondence of citizens. And also the fact that when this personal spills out into public space, everyone immediately becomes embarrassed. You can try to read aloud the correspondence with a loved one yourself, and you will feel how strange it sounds. Now the FSB demands that Telegram transfer access to users' personal correspondence, and threatens to block the messenger. And we decided to give them our correspondence ourselves, because we don't want them to happily snatch it out of our hands. I am against decrypting the correspondence, because I believe that a person should have a personal space in which the state should not interfere. "

Elizabeth Corsi

“Our action was designed to show the awkwardness that corresponds to reading other people's personal correspondence. That this is not very normal, because the personal should belong to us and no one else. And our state behaves completely differently. We have been living for a very long time in a situation where our personal data may become the property of the special services or someone else. Now there is another attempt to block Telegram, which is designed precisely so that we do not have any personal space left. So we went out to read our correspondence, but we were quickly detained. I was detained ten seconds after I started reading. It is very significant that we were not even allowed to do anything. "

Artem Shtanov

Activist, organizer of the action

“To be honest, my hands were shaking when I read this [personal correspondence]. Just because there were a lot of people around, cameras and so on. I've read very personal and important things to me. But for sure none of the FSB officers thinks what it will be like for people to live with this feeling that at any moment some comrade colonel can take and read your correspondence with your wife, husband, daughter or friends. And not because there is something shameful or illegal, it doesn't matter. The feeling itself is important. Personal correspondence is an intimate area. We thought that perhaps they [the FSB officers] did not fully understand this. And we decided to go to the FSB reception office and read some of our personal correspondence with close people, so that they and the people around us would understand and we ourselves would better understand how embarrassing it is, because all this is a personal and intimate part of your life, where you do not want to let anyone. " ...

It has always been believed that special services can easily eavesdrop on any conversation and read email correspondence, messages on social networks and through instant messengers.

How do intelligence agencies receive correspondence?

Several methods are used to obtain information. So what are the ways to read someone else's mail are available to the Russian special services.

  1. SORM - a system of technical means for ensuring the functions of operational-search measures. This is the provision by Internet providers of access to their communication channels, special-purpose services. Without providing such access, not one Internet provider in the Russian Federation will receive a license.
  2. An official request from an investigator, prosecutor or court to the server of a company providing e-mail services.

But not everything is so difficult for those who, as well as use foreign postal services. Foreign servers postal services are not physically located in the Russian Federation and do not have a license to operate in the Russian Federation.

The Russian government recommends, and in some cases tries to force foreign companies to cooperate with the Russian Federation and provide access to the correspondence of its users. For example, the famous Telegram service of Pavel Durov has been repeatedly blocked on the territory of Russia if he does not cooperate with the special services of the Russian Federation.

"Skype, for example, immediately agreed to cooperate, it gives the authorities access to encryption algorithms," Putin's advisor German Klimenko said in an interview with the newspaper "Komsomolskaya Pravda".

How to choose a mail service and protect yourself from reading your mail?

It is necessary to proceed from whether the postal company cooperates with the laws of Russia or not. I will quote the words of the adviser to the President of Russia Herman Klimenko from an interview with the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda. “So - our company Mail.ru will answer the inquiry of the investigator. And Google will not answer, but send it away. Why? He also responds to 32 thousand inquiries from the US National Security Agency per year. And he doesn't answer ours. " From here we can conclude such services as mail.ru, yandex.ru, rambler.ru can be read by the FSB of the Russian Federation, but such as yahoo.com, gmail.com, aol.com do not.

Any legislation in the field of messaging boils down to the fact that we build servers, and if you are encrypted, provide access keys. Why? Why does the Russian government want to control everything? The government explains this as helping to catch criminals: “drug addicts, rapists, pedophiles,” Klimenko reports.

Although on the Internet you can read the alternative opinion of people who talk about the control of petty criminals as just a curtain, but the meaning of total control lies elsewhere. Well, for example, to identify organizations of mass protests against the current government. Revealing opposition activities.

Let's summarize:

In order to protect your correspondence, you need to use the postal services of a foreign service with a democratic policy, it is mandatory, because it is not prohibited by law.


Information appears periodically on the Internet that messages in the WhatsApp messenger and on the VKontakte social network can be read by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the special services of the Russian Federation. Such data annoys users. They want to be sure that their private messages are their world, their secret. However, is it really so. This can be well understood.

There is an opinion on the Internet that the special services can read every correspondence on social networks if they need it. However, it should be noted that private messages are protected by law and without a court decision, reading messages is illegal.

Can the FSB read private messages on WhatsApp


In the personal blogs of users, you can read that supposedly the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the FSB have long been reading correspondence in r and other messengers. Of course, these are not expert opinions and they are not supported by an evidence base. That is, Internet users intuitively believe that the special services are monitoring the correspondence, that's all.

In terms of expert opinion, back in 2016 in the United States it was proven that to read whatsApp correspondence it will not be difficult for intruders or special services. Experts assure that everyone can get the encryption key at the time when the user changes it or the messenger itself does it.

The FSB has repeatedly stated that it can read users' correspondence, but this is done only by court order. An application is submitted, the court makes a decision. It is sent to the owners of the messenger and they are required to provide data on the accounts that are specified in the document. Another question is whether the user will know that he is being read. Most likely no.

Can the Ministry of Internal Affairs read VK correspondence


Social networks believe that the Ministry of Internal Affairs can read the correspondence of users on VK. There are a lot of arguments in favor of this argument that are considered convincing.

For example, it is believed that the social network would not work in Russia if it refused to provide the Ministry of Internal Affairs with access to correspondence. Also, users noticed that after Pavel Durov left VK, the new management of the social network stopped arguing with the FSB and other bodies about providing access to information. In their opinion, this indicates an agreement to provide all the necessary information upon the first request.

If we talk about legal means, no one can have permission to read correspondence or other information without a court decision. However, Internet users are not sure of this, since more and more bills appear in the State Duma that indicate that they can still read the correspondence. Russians complain about the emergence of control on the Web, where a citizen is not sure about the reliable encryption of his information.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs can read the correspondence of Russians on the Internet and listen to telephone conversations


The State Duma is developing bills to which society reacts negatively. For example, the so-called "Yarovaya package". According to the document, from October 1, 2018, all telecom operators are required to store user data for 30 days, including messages, photos, video and sound files.

The media reported that all this data is with the operator, but he must provide them to the special services at the first request. This means that the FSB and other services can read the correspondence and listen to conversations if the subscriber comes into their field of vision, and for this you just need to go to an uncoordinated rally or appear at a large protest rally several times.

Users who do not break the law can sleep well, but they are still concerned about this topic, since it is unpleasant to know that someone can read your personal correspondence. Even if there is not even anything illegal in it, these are still personal messages that only the addressee has the right to read.


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Corporate subscribers can read all team messages, including those written in private and secret chats. Companies are still reading the correspondence of their employees, using DLP solutions for this. These are technologies for preventing information leakage, with their help you can monitor what a person is doing, as well as automatically analyze his correspondence using keywords... The Village learned from an expert information securitywhat chats your boss can read easily, is it legal, and where you can have confidential conversations.

How do companies read employee correspondence?

Kirill Kerzenbaum

business Development Director Group-IB

There are several technical ways to track the correspondence of employees in the office. For example, by installing a special agent on each workstation. It can be embedded in the browser or the chat application itself, or it can intercept and decrypt traffic at the network equipment level. Both means using the so-called Man-in-the-middle technique.

Some messaging services that store chat history locally, for example Skype for Business, allow the IT service to view the message logs without installing additional software. Interception of traffic from social networks and instant messaging services, in particular the web version of the Telegram messenger, is available in some DLP solutions.

Which messages are harder to read?

It is more difficult to intercept information from smartphones. On Android, you can also install a special DLP agent, but if the device belongs to an employee, not a company, then this can be done legally only with his consent. It is impossible to install such a program on an iOS platform if the device has not been jailbreak.

Correspondence cannot be legally accessed on any platform that uses end-to-end encryption. This applies to mobile messengers WhatsApp, Telegram and Viber. But again, in the case of using the web version of Telegram, access to the current correspondence is possible. It is also worth remembering that most messaging services allow you to store or archive your message history locally or in cloud services, in particular Apple iCloud or Google drive... Having gained access to these archives, you can read the history of the correspondence of a particular person. But this can be done by a cybercriminal rather than by an employer, since it is illegal.

Is it legal?

The legislation looks at this in two ways, in particular, the judicial practice in Russia has examples when the courts sided with both the employer and the employee. Most reliable way to avoid legal claims - to prescribe this opportunity in the employment contract and obtain the employee's explicit consent to access, if necessary, his official correspondence. At the same time, the employer does not have the right to monitor personal correspondence.

It is very important to note that such consent gives the employer the right to automated control of correspondence by keywords, but not total control of all messages and their manual processing. The court can interpret this as a violation of the right to privacy of correspondence, telephone conversations, postal, telegraph and other messages (Article 23 of the Constitution of Russia).

There are countries, in particular Germany, where the employer is legally prohibited from monitoring any correspondence, even official, even if the employee consents to this in the employment contract. This or that message can be read only with the permission of the employee and with his assistance.

Where is the best place to conduct correspondence in order to keep it secret from the authorities?

Correspondence must be carried out with personal mobile devices and only using services that use end-to-end encryption, in particular Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber. It's also better to do this without connecting to a corporate Wi-Fi network.

To protect your correspondence from access by third parties, including hackers, it is better to use secret or private chats. First, they usually have an extra layer of encryption. In addition, their history is not saved either on the device, or on the servers of the service provider, or in backups.